Welcome to the July 7th People's Independent Inquiry Forum. We hope you enjoy your visit.

You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.

Were the four bombers being controlled or acting alone?Why did they buy return tickets if they were intending to die?Could MI5 have found out what was happening and stopped it?Was an al-Qa'ida suspect allowed to travel to the UK unwatched? The unanswered questions of the London attacks

Suicide bombers do not buy return tickets. Theirs is a one-way trip. When four young men met at Luton railway station a week ago last Thursday, however, they gave every impression of going to London and coming back. They paid and displayed, leaving valid tickets on the windows of a Nissan Micra and a Fiat Bravo in the station car park. They boarded the 7.48am to London carrying return tickets.

Why would they do that, if they knew they would be dying very soon? The car park can be explained: perhaps they did not want to attract attention or get stopped. But the question of the train tickets has no obvious answer, unless the bombers were not aware that they would be among the casualties at Aldgate, Edgware Road, King's Cross and on the No 30 bus. They may have thought that they could leave their deadly bags on the train or the bus and walk away, merging safely into the crowd by the time a detonator set off the plastic explosive they called Mother of Satan to kill and maim in those enclosed spaces. Or were they told the bombs would go off later than they did?

The police think not, and reject suggestions that the men were duped, but such questions remain as they and the security services try to piece together what happened on 7/7 and - crucially - what it means for the future. Will it happen again, soon? Have other terrorist cells been activated now? Were the men really working alone?

Three of the men who stepped off the train at King's Cross Thameslink station at 8.20 in the morning of 7 July were from Beeston in Yorkshire, where tidy terraces are punctuated by boarded-up homes and money is scarce. They had driven down to Luton in the very early hours in a hire car.

The youngest was Hasib Mir Hussain, a tall, bulky young man of 18. He had got into fights with local boys in the past, and been cautioned for shoplifting, but otherwise was known for his love of sport and an evolving passion for his faith. Four years ago, after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, he had started to change. Some former fellow pupils at the then Matthew Murray Comprehensive claim he handed out leaflets justifying 9/11, but family friends say no, the changes in him were more subtle than that. "His family had an idea he was involved in a different kind of Islam from theirs, but I don't think they realised the depth of his conviction," said one. Lately, though, Hussain had become isolated from his family and friends, not least because he was avoiding the local mosques and travelling to a Bangladeshi one in Dewsbury instead. That was a big deal in a community so self-contained.

Dewsbury was where Mohammed Sidique Khan lived. He was the oldest of the four men who met that morning. The 30-year-old had been brought up in Beeston, where he was known as Sid, but he moved south after meeting Hasina Patel at Leeds Metropolitan University and marrying her. He still kept up links with Beeston, working as a classroom assistant and mentor to immigrant children in a local school, Hillside. He was patient, said the staff, and great with the kids. But there was trouble at home. As Khan became increasingly serious about his religion he clashed with his wife, who had far more liberal views about family life. The marriage, which had not been arranged by the families, was not approved of by his mother-in-law.

The couple split up a year ago, just before Khan went on sick leave in September 2004, said to be suffering from depression. He finally resigned from the school in December. Visits to his wife and 14-month old daughter Maryam became less frequent, although as he made his journey to London 10 days ago his wife was heavily pregnant.

Beside him was Shahzad Tanweer, 23, the funny, sport-loving son of a man from Faisalabad in Pakistan. His father, Mumtaz, was a former special constable and now a respected member of the Hardy Street mosque, who ran a fish and chip shop called South Leeds Fisheries. After studying sports science at Leeds Metropolitan University, like the others Tanweer had visited Pakistan to see relatives and study the Koran. He attended Markaz-e-Dawa, a madrassa or religious school in north Pakistan for three months, ending in February, but came back early saying he didn't like the people. His nickname in the family was Kaka, or baby.

Filmed by the closed-circuit cameras at the station, the four men looked, the police would say, like "happy hikers", laughing and joking and ccarrying heavy bags.

The fourth man was a little different from the rest, and he did not come from Beeston. Germaine Lindsay, 19, was born in Jamaica but brought up in Huddersfield. Big and strong, he was keen on martial arts and boxing but also had a gentle, playful side to his nature, according to those who knew him. But he grew more distant from them after converting to Islam and changing his name to Abdullah Shaheed Jamal. He married Samantha Lethwaite, 22, from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, and she converted as well. Her family did not like that, or the burqa she wore.

When Lindsay and his wife moved to Aylesbury with their year-old son this year, they kept their distance. Lindsay had driven to Luton from Aylesbury that morning, also in a hire car. He was meeting men he knew from Leeds, where he had lived for a while and worshipped at the Grand Mosque.

Within minutes of being caught on film, they would be dead. Lindsay would die on train 311 just outside Russell Square; Tanweer in the third carriage of train 204 at Aldgate and Khan in the second carriage of train 216 at Edgware Road. Hussain would die on the No 30 bus in Tavistock Square. They took a lot of people with them, and caused a lot of pain.

Should they have been stopped? Was there any way the security services could have known about what was happening? Was there a mastermind who did not die in the bombings?

The police seem to think the answer to that last question is yes. One story being told around the Met is that a fortnight earlier a Special Branch officer spotted a Pakistani who was on a "watch list" as a potential member of al-Qa'ida entering the country through a sea port. The police officer told MI5, which decided not to track the suspect because he was low risk and it could not justify the massive resources demanded by 24-hour surveillance.

So nobody knows what the man did in Britain, but he flew out from Stansted airport just before the attacks. Did he give the orders? If so, was he also in contact with other potential terrorist cells in this country? However, that is just one version of the story. The security services, stung by the idea they let someone come and go under their noses, stress that there is no evidence so far to link the four bombers with any other person.

The police were adamant, in the aftermath of the bombings, that these had been "clean skins", people with no previous criminal records known to the security services. There was just one caveat to those police statements that went almost unnoticed: one of the men had come to their attention during a previous, unspecified operation.

This may have been what the French Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, was talking about when he told journalists - in an off-guard moment - that "part of this team" had been subject to "partial arrest" in the spring of last year. Mr Sarkozy had only just been briefed by the British Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, who was livid at his comments. They were "completely and utterly untrue", he said. A Home Office statement added that none of the men had ever been arrested or detained as part of an anti-terrorist operation.

That may well be true. But The Independent on Sunday can reveal that Khan did have links - including telephone contact - with an individual who came to the attention of police and security services last year during Operation Crevice, a major anti-terrorist operation in which properties across the Home Counties were raided. A large amount of explosive material was discovered in those raids. A security source reveals that MI5 was so overstretched at the time that it had to ask for agents from its sister force, MI6, to be recalled from abroad to help keep track of suspects. Although Khan's name came up during the course of inquiries, he was not questioned. Now, a convicted member of al-Qa'ida held in American custody has said he recognises Khan.

"We are not above criticism," says a security source. "When the dust settles ... we will look to see how these people got through our net."

Balthazar Garzon, a Spanish expert in the prosecution of terrorists, has described a "second generation" of extremists who have no history of affiliation to al-Qa'ida or any other organisation, but form loose, spontaneous groups based on personal relationships. Al-Qa'ida is their inspiration, their "ideological reference point" rather than their boss, although they may seek out its help.

The London bombers were born in the country they attacked, unlike any previous terror cell known to be active in Europe. Far from hiding their identities, they had documents on them that made it clear who they were. They did not, as far as anyone knows, finance their terrorism through crime. All this suggests that they were almost mourned as victims rather than the perpetrators, their guilt underplayed.

Hussain was indeed recorded as a victim when his mother called the police casualty hotline just after 10pm on the day of the bombings. His brother, Imran, had been trying to call his mobile for ages and getting no response. A police family liaison officer visited the home in Colenso Mount to take details, as with so many of the victims. The Hussains gave the names of the "mates" their son had gone to visit London with. They were desperately worried.

When the name of Mohammed Sidique Khan was entered on the police computer, and his link with Operation Crevice came to light, detectives must have caught their breath. Was this the break they needed? The security services stress that there was a huge amount of information coming in to them after the attacks and that there was "no silver bullet".

But the phone-call theory would explain the speed with which they moved to identify the bombers and pursue anyone connected with them. Cash cards and a driving licence belonging to Hussain were found among the ruins of the No 30 bus. Documents belonging to his named friends were also discovered at the Underground bomb sites.

On Monday, police trawling through CCTV footage found him standing with the others at King's Cross. Early next morning their homes were raided, along with a local community centre where a controlled explosion was carried out. Police also raided 18 Alexandra Grove, a neat, recently built house in a leafy neighbourhood that is much better off than the down-at-heel back-to-backs of Beeston. Close to the university, it has a large student population. There are a lot of people coming and going, and visitors are much less conspicuous there than among the tightly knit communities of Beeston.

The four-bedroomed flat on the third floor of the house is owned by the Leeds Federated Housing Association. The telephone number of a man renting it is said to have been found stored in a mobile phone owned by Hussain. The flat was raided on Tuesday morning and police found several kilos of "potentially dangerous" chemicals stored in a bath. These are thought to have made the acetone peroxide, the explosive used in the London bombs, which is dangerously unstable.

Reports suggest that forensic scientists have been able to place all four of the bombers at the flat. They have also linked it with Magdi Mahmoud el-Nashar, a 33-year-old Egyptian bio-chemist who was arrested in Cairo on Friday. He had recently left Britain after completing five years study at Leeds University. The Egyptian authorities insist that he has nothing to do with al-Qa'ida. His arrest came on the same day that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, mused: "What we have got to find is who encouraged them, who trained them. Who is the chemist?"

Were the bombers set up? That would explain reports of a man on the bus rummaging frantically in his bag just before the explosion. Did Hussain hear about the other explosions and panic? A neighbour who knew him said he had become a follower of Salafism, the stricter Islamic code based on practices from the earliest years of the religion. Who took advantage of his zeal for their own ends? Are there other young men like him in this country, waiting for the signal? Sir Ian seems to think so. He says there is a "very strong possibility" of further terrorist attacks.

Was Lindsay introduced to the others by a terrorist matchmaker, possibly to lead them? The others had grown up on the same streets. It was inevitable that they would run into each other at the local mosques, the youth club, or on the fields of Cross Flatts Park where Tanweer was playing cricket and football with his friends just a day before his death. These are streets where families know each other's business, and they are far more likely to talk about it among themselves than to disclose such things to strangers. Some say Khan, the oldest of the group, was a mentor to Hussain and Tanweer. Terrorism analysts would call this the role of "gatekeeper", the one who radicalised his recruits and knew how to obtain the means for an attack. However, locals say it was Hussain - the youngest but the biggest and possibly the most hot-headed of the four - who was the driving force.

At the heart of the community is the Hamara Healthy Living Centre, funded by the council. Its new building was opened in 2003 by Hilary and Tony Benn. It is only a few hundred yards from where Khan and Tanweer lived and half a mile from the home of Hussain. All of the men are said to have used the centre's facilities, although separately. Its former "youth access point" in Lodge Road has been closed for at least six months, but some locals say the bombers met there in secret, behind the graffitied steel shutters.

The key-holder, Naveed Fiaz, also worked at the Iqra bookshop selling radical Islamic material. He is currently in custody at Paddington Green police station. His home in Stratford Street was sealed off on Tuesday. On Thursday, armour-clad bomb-disposal experts sent robots in to the youth access point before carrying out a single controlled explosion. The Iqra bookshop was raided the following day and, like all the other buildings, searched for clues.

Some people in Beeston think Fiaz was the one who tipped off the police about the involvement of Khan, Hussain and Tanweer in the bombings. They suggest he is being held in custody for his own protection. This, however, is only a rumour. There are so many of those, as people struggle to understand why it was their neighbour or friend who made that journey to London with a bomb on his back. And as the police and security services try desperately - publicly and invisibly - to find out if there are any more.

The nexus of terror: how Pakistan became a world hub of extremism

Not for the first time in the war against terror, virtually every new turn in the investigation of the London bombs points to Pakistan. Every major al-Qa'ida figure in custody was captured in Pakistan. Though Pakistan's authorities deny it, senior Taliban figures are said to be living openly in the country.

Now Mohammed Junaid Babar, a Pakistani-American held in New York last year for attending a "terror summit" in Pakistan's Waziristan, has told US authorities he knows the London bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan. Another, Shahzad Tanweer, is said to have visited religious schools in Pakistan.

Faced with renewed global scrutiny, President Pervez Musharraf on Friday ordered police to stop banned militant groups holding meetings and thus gave a clear indication that the groups continue to enjoy public support.

President Musharraf's problem is that until 11 September 2001, Islamic militancy enjoyed official support. Pakistan took over what the Americans had started, when they backed the mujahedin fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Once the US lost interest in Afghanistan, Pakistan adopted the networks of militants. It used them to fight the Indians in Kashmir, and to install the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

But September 2001 made President Musharraf rethink his strategy. He managed a spectacular U-turn, siding with the US against the Taliban at great personal risk.

Public support, however, remains strong and factions in the military and the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service, retain links to militants. Some believe Bin Laden has evaded capture only with assistance from elements within the ISI.

Justin Huggler

Pakistan: Region by region

Peshawar/North-west Frontier Province/tribal areas

Most likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden. London bomber Khan identified by US-held al-Qa'ida man who attended 'terror summit' in region last year. Terror training camps include a religious school, known as 'the University of Jihad'

Islamabad

Capital of Pakistan. Westerners among those killed by grenades thrown into church in March 2002

Faisalabad

Four arrests yesterday after visit to city by London bomber Tanweer during one of his stays in Pakistan. Abu Zubaydah, said to be Osama bin Laden's chief of staff, captured in April 2002

Rawalpindi

Pakistan's military HQ. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of 9/11 attacks, captured here the following year. Scene of two assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf

Quetta

Former Taliban leaders said to live openly in city, which has close links with Kandahar, their former headquarters. Pakistan's secret services presided over the birth of the Taliban here in the 1990s

Lahore

Two arrests yesterday in wake of London bomber Tanweer's alleged visit to madrassa near Pakistan's second largest city. Capture of al-Qa'ida computer expert Naeem Noor Khan last July led to wave of arrests of alleged al-Qa'ida figures in Britain

No explanation for the numerous unsubstantiated stories reported by the press that have originally come from 'security sources'.

Fails to properly assess the authenticity of the video released through Al Jazeera of Khan.

Bus:

No reference to bus cameras being out of operation and no explanation for this.

No reference to exactly why the bus was diverted and who diverted it.

The reports fail to mention what intelligence was gathered through the surrounding cameras which would have captured the explosion.

CCTV:

There are only specific references to four cctv images:

One reference to a Micra on Hyde Park Road, Leeds and one reference to Tanweer at Woodhall Services.

Two images of all four men - one released to public purporting to show the four men entering Luton station and the other, which has not been released, apparently shows the men "at 08.26 on the concourse close to the Thameslink platform." (Home Office)

The police have previously released images of Hussain apparently from the 7th July at Luton station and in Boots (Kings Cross). It is not made clear why the image from Luton is not timestamped and it is not explained why the image of Hussain in Boots at 0900 appears to show normality when Kings Cross was being evacuated at this time.

It is unclear why so few cctv images are sourced in the report when the men would have been caught on hundreds if not thousands of cameras during their supposed journey.

Drills:

No reference is found in either report of the drills being conducted on the morning of the 7th July by Visor Consultants.

Explosives:

No explanation is given with regard to how the bombs were made or who made them. It is not made clear why the initial assessments made by experts and police, which indicated that high grade explosives were used, have been omitted from the official reports.

Home Office: "Expert examination continues but it appears the bombs were homemade, and that the ingredients used were all readily commercially available and not particularly expensive. Each device appears to have consisted of around 2-5 kg of home made explosive."

ISC: "Post-incident forensic analysis has shown that the explosions were caused by home-made organic peroxide-based devices."

Identification:

The reports do not reveal exactly what documents and belongings the authorities supposedly recovered from the bomb sites. There is no mention of post mortems. It is not made clear exactly where the DNA that identified the men was found.

Home Office: DNA has identified the four at the four separate bombsites.

Investigation:

18 Alexander Grove, Leeds - no evidence is provided to verify that the men had access to this property. DNA apparently found. Still does not clarify exactly what the police found in way of explosives.

No mention that forensic analysis found nothing incriminating at the men's homes or at other places searched such as the gyms, bookshop and youth centre.

Fails to account for an almost 2 hour gap in the alleged journey from Leeds to Luton station.

No explanation for the lack of witnesses who claim to of seen the men and the lack of cctv footage.

Cars at Luton - little information provided of the explosives which were supposedly left in the cars. It is not made clear how the police were led to the cars. Lindsay's wife was reportedly told that the police identified him from the pay and display ticket, but the Home Office state that the Brava was towed for not having a pay and display ticket.

Hussain's movements - large gaps that the narrative does not fill in. Unclear where certain information has come from.

Mastermind:

Initially it was thought that there must have been a support network behind the attacks but the reports imply that the men were influenced by an ideology, and were not trained by terrorists but acted independently.

The intelligence supplied to the press about Haroon Aswat being in communication with some of the men is not mentioned.

Home Office: The press reported later that a known extremist figure and possible mastermind left the UK shortly before the bombings. There is no evidence that this individual was involved.

This is presumably Haroon Aswat. Why don't they name him? What exactly was Aswat's connection with MI6 at the time of the bombings? There is no attempt to understand why the press took the intelligence about Aswat's connection seriously.

Prior Knowledge:

There is no mention of the reported warnings from the Saudis or the USA.

There is no attempt to explain why Israeli officials reported that the Israeli embassy in London had received a warning of a possible attack shortly before the bombs detonated.

The prior knowledge MI5 had of Khan and Tanweer remains relatively unknown. On the periphery of alleged bomb plots could in theory mean that the men were innocent. If the leak to the Times is to be believed then MI5 are guilty of with holding evidence from the government.

The Four Men:

The reports do not reveal where much of the information about the four men has come from and the language used reflects uncertainty. Although they make it relatively clear that a number of the most incriminating stories reported by the press have no basis, they do not attempt to explain why the press published these stories which were often provided by unknown security sources.

The Train:

The reports do not make clear where certain information has come from with regard to the alleged journey the men took from Luton to London.

The Tubes:

The reports do not account for the changing of the Piccadilly line tube from 311 to 331.

The Witnesses:

The reports do not mention that several witnesses who were close to the blasts do not remember seeing anyone fitting the descriptions of the men.

Fails to explain witness accounts suggesting that the bombs detonated underneath the carriages.

08.23: The train arrives at Kingís Cross, slightly late due to a delay further up the line. The 4 are captured on CCTV at 08.26am on the concourse close to the Thameslink platform and heading in the direction of the London Underground system. At around 08.30am, 4 men fitting their descriptions are seen hugging. They appear happy, even euphoric. They then split up.

The Home Office report then goes on to say that the men are seen again at 8.30am, but does not state whether they are seen by a CCTV camera or a witness.

From the CCTV that has been released after the second "7/7 helpers" trial, which does not show any hugging, euphoria or splitting despite certain misleading media captions, I think the conclusion is that this must be a witness statement. In support of this, the phrase "was seen" is used when documenting the witness statements of Danny Biddle and Richard Jones in the Official Narrative:

QUOTE

Shortly before the explosion, Khan was seen fiddling with the top of the rucksack.

QUOTE

A man fitting Hussainís description [sic] was seen on the lower deck earlier, fiddling repeatedly with his rucksack.

Unlike (for all their flaws) the Biddle and Jones descriptions, I don't think there are witness descriptions of hugging and euphoria in the public domain other than in the Home Office Narrative. Even that account doesn't definitively state that the huggers were the four suspects, only that they were "4 men fitting their descriptions".

The witness, if s/he exists, did not testify on oath in either "7/7 helpers" trial.

This tenuous description of hugging and euphoria has been endlessly re-iterated by the media as if it is a well established fact.

Terrorism: 7 July BombingsHouse of LordsWritten answers and statements, 1 December 2009

Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have identified any of those responsible for the bombings on 7 July 2005 in London and any countries or organisations for which they worked.

Lord West of Spithead (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Security and Counter-terrorism), Home Office; Labour)

Details of the identities of the four individuals responsible for the bombings of 7 July 2005 is contained in the Intelligence and Security Committee's report: Review of the Intelligence on the London Terrorist Attacks on 7 July 2005. The four were identified as Mohammed Siddique Khan, Shazad Tanweer, Jermaine Lindsay and Hasib Hussain. It is considered that none of these individuals worked on behalf of another country. Although al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks, there is as yet no firm evidence to corroborate this claim. However, the target and mode of attack of the 7 July bombings are typical of al-Qaeda and those inspired by its ideologies.

The ISC has commented in its second report that "it has become clear, since 7/7, that Mohammed Siddique KHAN had been training in Pakistan (on at least two occasions) and also possibly in Afghanistan".

When the files go to Clarke they will be reviewed by William Nye, the new director of counter-terrorism and intelligence at the Home Office. He will advise Clarke on how much of the intelligence material on the four bombers should be made public in the narrative of events. It is expected to be complete by the spring.

William Nye would have overseen the creation of the official account, as Director of Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence (2005-2007).

Note that William Nye was the 'Finance Director' of the Home Office during the Crevice operation & up to 2005, despite having no accountancy qualifications (as confirmed in the following Written Answer):

Nye then went on to become the Director of Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence (2005-07), a director in the Office for Security and CounterTerrorism, and then the Head of the National Security Secretariat:

QUOTE

William Nye (La B 78-83) is at theCabinet Office as Head of theNational Security Secretariat, whichis responsible for supporting andadvising the Prime Minister, and theCabinetís National SecurityCommittee, on all areas of nationalsecurity work, and ensuring thestrengthening of the security of theUK and all of its citizens. Previouslyhe worked in the Home Office, asDirector of Counter-Terrorism andIntelligence 2005-07, and from 2007as director in the Office for Securityand CounterTerrorism, before whichhe was Finance Director of theDepartment. Prior to that, he workedin the Treasury and the Departmentfor Culture, Media and Sport.